Four-year-olds and their mothers co-constructed a narrative. At ages 4 and 5, children constructed personal narratives and mothers rated children's behavior. At both ages, children who were more emotionally coherent, compared to children who were less so during the co-construction, constructed personal narratives that were more coherent, more…

Examined peer group contextual effects of aggressive behavior among middle school students. Found substantial within-group similarity on self-reported bullying and fighting, suggesting that students affiliate with individuals who bully and fight at the same frequency as they. Peer group bullying and fighting were associated with individual-level…

Relational aggression occurs when social relationships are used to harm peers. It can be as harmful as physical aggression, is more common in girls than in boys, and usually peaks in middle school years. In programs of the Ophelia Project, high school students make younger girls aware of relational aggression and how to stop it, and present…

Relational aggression is a form of bullying that includes both overt name-calling and verbal attacks as well as such indirect strategies as spreading gossip and rumors, manipulating friendships, or intentionally excluding or isolating someone. Educators must become more attuned and vigilant in their responses to it. Offers successful strategies.…

Explores how students in a boy's English secondary school display aggressive traits. Devises an intervention program centered on human rights. Concludes that the school fails to build meaningful relationships among its members, students, and staff; offers little opportunity to shape the institutions rules; and that rigid discipline reduces…

Examined stability of gang membership in early adolescence, concurrent behaviors, family characteristics, friendships, and school attitudes of stable and unstable gang and nongang members. Found that stable gang members, compared to nongang members, had higher teacher ratings of fighting behavior, hyperactivity, inattention and oppositional…

Surveyed 272 high school juniors and seniors concerning violence and agonistic sibling relationships. Findings indicated that siblings engaged in variety of violent acts directed toward one another and that there were few gender differences as to extent of such behaviors. Subjects reported experience of negative physical and verbal interactions…

States the position of the National Association for the Education of Young Children on violence in children's programing. Presents research upon which the statement is based, as well as recommendations for policymakers, teachers, and parents. (PCB)

Examined social cognitive skills in aggressive and nonaggressive delinquent youths with high or low behavioral functioning. Found significant interaction on problem-solving skills, with higher functioning, non-aggressive youths performing better than lower functioning counterparts; no differences occurred within aggressive groups. (Author/NB)

Investigates interspousal violence using a model of interpersonal violence derived from the aggression literature. Finds that destructive forms of communication such as verbal aggressiveness lead to physical violence, whereas constructive forms such as argumentativeness reduce the chance of escalation to physical aggression. (SR)

Results of four mid-1970s experiments continue to be used as evidence that exposure to media violence desensitizes children to real-life aggression. This study replicated procedures from those experiments using contemporary video materials, and results confirmed original findings that children tend to tolerate more the aggressive behaviors of…

This study compared the cooperation, aggression, and wandering behavior of 12 first-grade children with severe to profound hearing losses with that of 12 hearing children. No significant differences were found in amounts cooperation, aggression, or wandering behavior displayed by the two groups. However, children with hearing loss changed…

Examined social problem solving and emotion expression in children with low, moderate, and severe behavior problems. Eighty-nine four- and five-year-olds were confronted with dilemmas of interpersonal conflict and distress. Girls expressed more themes of social construction, cohesion, and accommodation but also more anger than boys, whereas boys…

Assesses aggressive behavior on television in terms of its realism. Replicated and contextualized reality were assessed for 100.5 hours of programming. Replicated reality compared television portrayals to real world characteristics, and was similar in seriousness to aggression and gender patterns of perpetrators and victims. Contextual reality…

This article reviews the development of functional analysis in understanding behavior problems like self-injury and aggression and, more recently, school-based problems. Seen as particularly promising is current work on the analysis of setting events and analysis of dependent variables by considering the effects of intervention on response…